“Hey, Miss eye-for-details,” Phoenix said. “Any idea how to fill this thing up with Psykotics?”
Alaia made a stupid grin, raised her eyebrows a few times, and pointed at Phoenix. “We need a ramp – probably a whole lot of two by sixes we can pick up outside at Lowe’s. There’s rope in the cab, probably. We put you in the back and you holler. When the back end is full, you climb out, I shut the back end, and that’s all she wrote.”
“That won’t work because I’ll be dead before it fills up,” Phoenix said. “But a ladder will do the trick.”
Dr. Carson nodded. “We use the rope to tie the ladder into place, you stand on the highest rung, and you’ll have as long as you want to fill up the bed. Then you climb out and drive off.”
“Who closes the back end?” Alaia asks.
“I got this,” Phoenix said. He handed Alaia his pack. “Just take care of this for me. I’ll take the twelve gauge, though.” He climbed into the brand new Kenworth, started it up, and drove it up the ramp and onto the road.
As Phoenix neared the shopping district, he saw tall office buildings and even taller hotels. The closer he got, the more difficult the way forward became. Cars, hundreds of them, all sitting at intersections bumper-to-bumper, though not blocking their way completely, proved to be a puzzle at first. No matter. He’d find a way through; and every time, he did.
Masses of infected saw the moving vehicles. They mixed in among the cars, wandering and staggering on every street and on every embankment. Some were bloodied and dismembered. Others looked clean and well-dressed. A good number of them, incited by the movement of the vehicles, especially the loud throbbing noise come from the truck, sprang to life like children being offered chocolate.
Phoenix reached the Lowe’s parking lot without any trouble, finding it an hour later. The parking lot area was filled with infected. He called Alaia. “I’m going to pull up close and grab the wood. Can you get their attention?”
“I got it,” Alaia said.
Phoenix pulled in front of the lumber side of the store just as Alaia began turning doughnuts in the center of the parking lot. His idea worked. Large numbers of infected began walking in her direction, moving with a speed that frightened him. He grabbed his shotgun and looked outside – through the front windshield and the side view mirrors. It looked doable. A few infected remained between him and the store, a small child and an old woman – that was all. He climbed down out of the cab through the passenger-side door and hit the ground running.
He released the swinging gate on the rear of the truck. On the other side of the truck, up against the curb, he found a stack of kiln-dried two by six by twelves, and he began the heavy work of loading them up. Instead of sliding them forwards onto the smooth metal bed of the trailer to be carried elsewhere, he began creating the ramp. Two infected came towards him. He stopped, fired off two rounds in quick succession, decapitating both of them, and continued building the ramp. Eight planks later, the job was finished.
Without a second’s hesitation, he ran towards the glass doors and hip-fired a single shot. The glass blew apart, shattering into millions of tiny, sparkling fragments and, without missing a step, he ran on into the store.
Ladders, ladders – where are you?
Three minutes later, Alaia saw Phoenix hurrying up the ramp into the back of the truck, lumbering along, dragging a long, aluminum ladder behind him. Several infected, who must have followed him out of the store, kept pace with him.
They followed him up the ramp and into the truck. Alaia hit the horn and drove Nascar-style in his direction.
“He’s got the ladder up,” Dr. Carson said. “There he goes! He actually did it!”
“Hooray, Phoenix,” Alaia said. “Way to go, white boy! Let’s just hope those things can’t figure out how to climb.”
Phoenix climbed up to the top of the ladder, turned towards the Jeep, and waved. He picked up his cell phone and called Alaia.
“You did it,” Alaia said.
“I need to you draw the infected towards the truck,” Phoenix said. “Just don’t let them box you in. When they start up into the truck, I want you to back away a bit. When it looks like it’s full, come back around and draw off the others. Then I’ll jump down and close up the back.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Alaia said. “Just make sure it’s clear – and don’t take any chances.”
Phoenix unslung a section of rope and fastened the ladder to the top of a steel rod that ran along the top of one of the panels. Just in time. The first couple of infected reached the ladder and, though they didn’t seem to know what to do with it, they bumped into it, scooting it across the metal floor of the flat bed. Phoenix felt his heart jump.
“Come on, everybody!” Phoenix yelled, and he swung his one free arm in the air, hoping to lead the hundreds of wobbling, walking corpses up the ramp and onto the trailer. He counted them as they came. He stopped at one hundred fifty, finally losing count when the surging wave of near-humanity looked thicker than bugs on a front bumper. Some of the infected, in their struggle up the ramp to get to Phoenix, were either pushed or lost their balance, and some fell from the ramp onto the pavement below.
“So this is what it feels like to be a rock star,” Phoenix said aloud to himself. “Woo-hoo! Come and get me!”
The trailer reached capacity in less than twenty minutes. The infected, moaning and screeching, packed as tightly as any can of Sardines he’d ever seen, could no longer move forward or backwards.
Phoenix didn’t have to call Alaia. She must have been watching. She brought the Jeep back into the parking lot, squealing the tires and laying on the horn. More than a hundred infected remained on the ground, but Alaia pulled in close, opened her window, and shouted.
The mass of left overs, like quivering sushi chasing customers on a conveyor belt, began moving away from the rear of the truck. Alaia nudged the Jeep forward a few feet at a time.
The crowd at the back of the truck started to thin out noticeably; and Alaia, now a couple hundred feet out and still moving, had tricked the majority of them into following her.
Phoenix took the shot. He climbed carefully up to the top of the ladder, holding onto the ropes, and dropped over the side of the front panel and in between the cab and the trailer. He did it quietly, without a sound, and he climbed down onto the pavement on the passenger side of the cab. He opened the door and climbed in.
He put the truck into first gear and tapped the gas pedal. The truck jerked forward five or six feet, and the ramps, and any remaining infected standing on them, fell away, falling to the ground. He put the vehicle into neutral and set the parking brake, then he exited the cab through the passenger door, hit the asphalt, and ran to the rear.
The infected, who had fallen with the ramps, struggled and fell again as they tried to get up onto their feet. Phoenix quickly grabbed onto the rear gate and swung it closed with all of his might. It slammed into place with a rattle and a bang, locking itself into position.
When Phoenix turned to run, he tripped and fell over an infected person. In a millisecond, another infected was on top of him, screeching and clawing. He felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder and he cried out, turning to face his attacker. He struggled to free himself, wiggling like a mad man, throwing punches and head-butting, and he kicked the infected woman away. He jumped to his feet and picked up his shotgun. The eighteen round magazine still held sixteen rounds, and he took aim at the woman and fired, decapitating her with the first blast.
Other infected came towards Phoenix. He held his ground, firing the semi-auto Saiga shotgun point-blank into the faces of the infected, showering the pavement all around him in a rain of blood and flesh. He counted off fifteen shots and pulled back, reserving the last shot for an emergency. He hurried back towards the passenger door of the cab and climbed in.
How long Phoenix had before he turned, before the infection took him, he couldn’t guess. Maybe a day, maybe a half a day. He didn’t know. He picked up
his phone and called Alaia.
“You’re a rock star, Phoenix Malone,” Alaia said when she answered.
“Who would’ve guessed?” Phoenix said, reaching up to touch his left shoulder. “Time to head to Carson Research Labs – we aren’t stopping.”
“Phoenix,” Alaia said, “I don’t want you to get hurt. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Just text me the address and stop asking questions,” Phoenix said. “There isn’t much time – not if we’re going to get Dr. Carson back into his lab. Stay close behind me, but don’t let anybody see you. When the CDC is under control, I’ll call you.”
“I got it.”
In less than a half minute, Phoenix received the text from Alaia. He memorized the address to Carson Research Labs and then voiced it into his GPS app. He put the truck into gear and drove away.
Chapter 35
Carson Research Labs was located south and west of the small, usually traffic-jammed town of Franklin, Tennessee. During any workday, which seemed to include weekends, traffic through the Cool Springs Mall area crept along like the CMA awards on cough syrup and a used crutch. That so many cars and trucks had been left in the streets and parking lots was no big surprise, given the outbreak of the virus. The only thing different between today and any other day – and this made Phoenix smile – was the lack of exhaust fumes and noise. It was almost as if he were walking through a concrete and metal jungle, enjoying the silence that was broken only by huge, black crows fighting over the dead.
The sound of the truck’s engine, throaty and staccato, seemed to shake the air around him as he downshifted coming into a small, now-permanent traffic snarl. He slowed the rig considerably as he approached an intersection, the last one before the open road out of the shopping areas. He drove around the car pileup by driving up onto the curb and through a magnificent planting of yellow and blue flowers.
He felt warm, even with the windows rolled down; and he felt a tinge of panic, and just a tinge, flit through his body like a ghost. It shot from his brain to his feet in less time than it took for him to blink, returning the same way it came. He reached up and touched his right shoulder, feeling the frayed fabric, torn through to his skin. But his fingers showed him only a small bit of blood. He wondered how long he’d last before the full onset of the Psyke Virus and how long before he, like the others, became bird bait or killer.
Phoenix stared straight ahead, slowing for the sharper curves, maintaining a marginally faster rate of speed on the straight, open road. The CDC would hear the truck coming, no matter what. At first, the soldiers would probably hold their fire, thinking perhaps it belonged to the CDC and that it might contain supplies and equipment. But they’d call it in on their walkies and they’d be told that no such truck had been ordered. The soldiers would either fire on the truck, aiming for the driver, or they’d motion for it to stop and send it back the way it had come. Phoenix settled on the former.
His phone, plugged up to the cigarette lighter, warned him of an incoming call. He picked it up, unplugged it, and looked at the number. Phillip Mercer. Maybe this would be the last time.
“I knew you’d call,” Phoenix said.
“It’s the little things in life that make you smile, Phoenix,” Phillip Mercer said. “But I think you’ve figured some of that out by now.”
“Why do I not hate you?”
“Give it time. You’ll have plenty of it.”
“There isn’t any time left, you said so yourself.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Phoenix had a gut feeling that now was the time for confidences, that Phillip Mercer would finally put a stop to all of the evasiveness, all of the mystery, and start answering questions. This little journey, behind the wheel of this big truck, a truck loaded with hundreds of infected, all of them with their teeth-chattering, led to the end of the road in more ways than one. Whatever role Phillip played in this apocalypse – and he knew this guy was more than just his guardian angel – Phoenix knew the truth, or the confession, must come now. Criminals could never go quietly into the night unless they’d first raged against the dying light, shaken their fists at whatever it was that had twisted and deformed them.
“You died forty some odd years ago, Phillip, didn’t you? Back at St. David’s. I mean – yeah! – you still had a body. But you kinda just died all inside. But your body. It died four years ago.”
Except for a slow, rhythmic breathing sound, there was nothing but silence.
“How do you do it?” Phoenix asked. “You really aren’t breathing, but I can hear and almost feel the wind from your lungs.”
“Your guesses are coming along nicely.”
“You saw them, didn’t you?”
“Saw them?”
“That night, in the back if Eric Sawyer’s BMW. You hated them after that – Eric for seducing her, Mariela because she went along with it. It’s a shame that nobody except you and I will ever know that.”
Phillip Mercer remained silent.
“Eric dumps her right after their little stint in the back seat, doesn’t look at her or speak to her for a few days. But he feels bad, feels like he’s nailed himself to a cross – just the feeling a Bible major has after he does what he did. But he goes up to her room to work it all out, doesn’t he? He tells her he loves her and she feels the same. She wants to do the right thing, too. And the Psyke drug? Mariela didn’t need it. Eric never used it.”
“I will have to say, Detective Malone, that … that your guesses---”
“But you knew Eric was on his way to the dorm, didn’t you? He must have told you. You hated Eric so much that you followed him that night and you pumped him good. Five bullets, wasn’t it? But only one for the girl you loved because you could only kill her gently.”
“And so the world will burn in the fires of hell, just as it was meant to,” Phillip said.
“If there’s anyone left.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of people left. The Psyke Virus – which is Dr. Carson’s own brew, so-to-speak, can only go so far.”
Phoenix had come to the end of his guessing. His taunting of Phillip Mercer had paid dividends beyond his wildest dreams, but not nearly enough cash to retire on. He bit his lower lip and shook his head, knowing that the larger picture still eluded him. But Phillip Mercer, much to Phoenix’s everlasting delight, plowed ahead, probably thinking that Phoenix had unraveled more of the tangled wire than he actually had.
“And without you, Detective Malone, I would never have had the funds to start, let alone finish my life’s work. Without you, justice would have come to a fair but disappointing end in that small college dormitory.”
“Without me?”
“A bag of Krystal’s burgers and pups was a small price to pay for one hundred million dollars, wouldn’t you agree?”
“A lot of people were helped by that – I thought you were a saint.”
“No, Phoenix, an angel of death sent by God to do his work. You are no Judas, Phoenix, you are the voice in the wilderness making straight the path of the destroyer. Death and destruction follow in my path, and all but a few will find the gates that lead to life everlasting. Be grateful, Phoenix – I am not allowed to kill you with the fire that is coming. But all the others? They have turned away from God. Their reward is as God has always said it would be.”
Phoenix felt the blood drain away from his face, felt a sudden coldness, deep and chilling, crashing over him like the wave of a tsunami. He shifted in his seat, gripping the steering wheel with increased pressure until the strength in his hands gave out. He suddenly felt sick and, had there been a spot to do so, he would have hurled all over the cab. He fumbled for this Oblivium inhaler and found it. “Fire?”
“So, you are gently rebuked, Detective Malone,” Phillip Mercer said. “You understand now the consequence of every action, however small and insignificant. Your tiny act of kindness towards me and all of those poor people, who did get something, by the way, has paved the wa
y for the second single greatest event in world history.”
“What … what happens at midnight, Mr. Mercer?”
“At midnight, at exactly twelve – and I wish you could see it! – the atmosphere itself, the very air you breathe, will become fuel and it will ignite like the fumes of gasoline. Everything on the earth, from one pole to the next, will turn into ash. God’s justice, Phoenix, will rain down fire.”
“You’re a mad man.”
“And you, my dearest, dearest Phoenix, are my benefactor. But your work is not yet done, my wayward son. So, let me ask you – how does it feel knowing that you have had no small part in the end of the world as we know it?”
The call ended just as Phoenix came to the last turn in the road. He hit the brakes, but gently, and slowed the rig down, bringing it to a full stop. He squeezed his eyes shut and laid his head on the steering wheel, bumping it gently up and down. He remembered the inhaler, lifted it to his lips, and he swore. Without taking a hit, he ripped the drug container from the mouthpiece, threw it onto the floor, and crushed it with his boot.
He turned when he heard someone knocking on his window, and he saw Alaia. He looked at her for a moment, and then he motioned for her to get down. He opened the door. “Just thinking,” he called down to her, dismissing the concern he saw in her face. Dr. Carson came up right behind her.
“Listen, Detective Malone,” Dr. Carson said, talking above the sound of the truck’s idling motor. “I couldn’t tell you any of this earlier, but now it needs to be said. Without you … without you, Phoenix, nobody lives.”
Phoenix climbed down. He held his hands up with his palms facing out, and he shook his head. “You mean because of me, everybody dies. I … I really don’t want to know anything else at this point. I get it. I caused this and I’m going to have be the one to---”
Time Clock Hero Page 24
